#This SE is about that sort of uncomfortable feeling of a transitional period in your life

[bonefall]

some ideas: nico’s rise (like sunrise), nico’s dawn, nico’s spark (like the fire)

I want it to be more about chronology. Like, the passage of time, the "natural" change of things. There's a sense in this book that the change is welcome, but a bit... dreaded. Because in the end, it's like she had no agency over the way her Clan's tune changed.

As inevitably as the sun rises, as the ice thaws in spring, things got better. She was able to finally see the changes she could make, but was still frustrated by all the things still out of her reach.

She's the same as she always was, but it's like the world turned around her. She's entered into a new season in her life, and only now will she decide what that means, going foward. She could not choose when the winter melted into spring, but maybe now, she will be able to select which flowers she will allow to grow.

So... maybe Nightcloud's Dawn, but something doesn't capture it quite perfectly yet.

[blitz-and-hearth]

Some empty cups family trans headcanons because I’m feeling dysphoric after being called she all Thanksgiving and need that good shit right now (tw for talking about periods, dysphoria, and transphobia) And when I say empty cups, I mean all the empty cups so long post beware 

Blitzen figured it out at a very young age, his father Bili had some nonbinary leanings (but didn’t know it was a thing when he was young) so he encouraged little Blitz to experiment with gender expression to his heart’s content  

He was probably about 7 or 8 when he decided to start going by male pronouns 

Blitzen is his birth name, dwarven names are usually pretty gender-neutral. He didn’t feel like he needed to change it 

Thanks to both male and female dwarves growing beards he’s pretty comfortable in his own skin even after puberty. He does end up getting top surgery the very minute he can though. Has no plans for bottom surgery 

BUTTON UP SHIRTS AND LAYERS ALL THE TIME 

It's just a transmasc thing

And you know he’s always wearing suits and ties not just because they’re fashionable but make him very euphoric

Dwarven culture isn’t much better than humans when it comes to accepting trans folk, however, they do consider cosmetic surgery a craft, so their own rules mean they have to respect any and all transitioning surgeries  

Mostly Blitzen just doesn’t talk about it much unless someone else brings it up. His father never made a big deal out of it so neither does he

Mostly situational dysphoria, when he’s around his mother or other people who knew him before he transition, other dwarves who can better tell the different subtleties of cis dwarf gender, and of course on the dreaded shark week 

Humans and Midgard are both awesome because they see the beard and can’t tell the difference between “male” vs “female” facial hair like other dwarves do. Very easy to pass there 

Hearthstone obviously was not in a safe place to explore his gender growing up

On top of all the other shit he had going on during his childhood he was constantly feeling wrong and uncomfortable in his own body 

Lots of dissociation and frustration

Alderman wouldn’t let him cut his hair, forced him to wear dresses, and constantly said shit like “bE mOrE lAdYlIkE”  

Hearthstone finally figures it out after accidentally stumbling across some websites while trying to research magic. It's just a post on a blog about some spell for good luck to help with transitioning but it’s how he learns being trans is like a real thing 

It was both great to know there were other people like him but also like the worst possible news because he knows he could never ever come out and transition while living under his parent’s roof 

He was only about 13 and lots of tears were had that night

The very next day he has his first period and just can not anymore 

Full snap, cuts his hair short for the very first time, binds his chest grabs what little he owns and gets the hell out of there that day 

Meets Blitzen like right after so needless to say he didn’t get much time to explore. He wasn’t about to come out to someone he just met, that shits scary what would he do if Blitzen didn’t accept him? He wouldn’t be strong enough to try world jumping for weeks and wouldn’t survive in Nidavellir without the sunbed 

Blitzen had his suspicions but obviously understood why he’d be nervous about coming out, so he just kept his mouth shut about it until Hearthstone felt like talking about it 

I’ve made a post about this before, but it happens on accident while Hearth is changing because a) he wasn’t allowed to lock doors growing up b) wouldn’t notice if you knocked to see if he’s in there anyway 

What’s not reflected in the comic is Blitzen silently screaming because Hearth has been using ace bandages to bind does he know how dangerous that is???? But he didn’t say anything about it right then because this was a sensitive situation and he wanted to make sure Hearthstone knew he was in the same boat and nothing would change before starting to scold him  

Hearthstone cried a lot

It's a big moment that builds their friendship and later romantic relationship and after that Hearthstone starts being a lot more honest about his past with Blitzen

Hearthstone isn’t his birth name, his dead name is probably something to do with flowers, super feminine and he hated it. He doesn’t have a real reason for choosing Hearthstone since it was a bit spur of the moment when Blitzen asked his name. Blitz later asked if he’s sure that's what he wants to go with and Hearthstone decides to stick with it 

Part of the deal with Mimir was his parents forgetting that he was born female. It really was no question at all which choice he’d take 

(Inge remembers but respects his pronouns because she’s a fucking decent person) 

It’s the only reason Alderman didn’t constantly misgender and deadname him. Being in his old home and seeing his father still reminds him of how it used to be though 

Hearth has more bad dysphoria days than good. Blitzen is always right there to tell him he looks handsome and very masculine today. Blitz doesn’t have as many bad dysphoria days but you bet your ass when he does Hearthstone will absolutely provide a constant flow of compliments until he starts to feel better   

Hearthstone used runes to transition because if you’re trans you’ve totally daydreamed about how awesome and less scary it would be if magic was real. He offered Blitzen to do the same but Blitz had already had top surgery and doesn't really want bottom surgery so he turns it down 

Magnus was also encouraged to try exploring his gender from a young age by his mother 

I mean.... Just take a moment look at Magnus’ mom for a sec 

Yeah that woman ain’t straight Magnus had a good childhood while she was around 

I still think it took him a while though

Just because he didn’t really think about it much until puberty happened 

He was just starting to think about his gender when his mother died 

Later looking back it makes him really sad that he never got to tell her

Then he was homeless and a bit busy 

He learned Blitzen and Hearth are both trans pretty quick though 

I think this is even mentioned in canon that there's not a lot of privacy living on the street 

Probably got an idea when he ran out of pads 

Magnus: Fuck I’m out of pads and still got like three days left :/ Blitzen: *handing him some spare pads* Here I got you covered kid Magnus: ?????? Why? do you have these???? 

He’s a little slow on the uptake bless him 

Eventually, he sees Blitz and Hearth’s chest scars and is like OH 

He starts asking them both a lot of questions, still thinking its just innocent curiosity but Blitz and Hearth are sharing knowing looks the whole time

Sure enough like only a few days later he’s like “I think I wanna go by Magnus now” 

His mother had mentioned to him that’s the name she’d have gone with if he’d been born male and he liked it enough to keep her wish 

I wanna say his dead name starts with a B? I dunno why    

Birthdays don’t mean much to Magnus while homeless but Blitzen and Hearthstone get him a binder for his 15th birthday, refuse to explain where they got it 

(Blitz made it but Hearth was the one to steal the materials he needed) 

Magnus obviously never had the option for medical transitioning while alive and homeless, but if given the choice he’d probably get on T but not have any surgeries

Jack is a sword who canonically picked his own name and it’s talked about there being female swords despite having no genital or way to tell, all living weapons choose their own gender he’s trans 

Samirah can’t remember not knowing she was a girl 

Like Alex she probably just knew from very early 

Her grandparents are mentioned being a bit more forward-thinking so while they’re probably not happy per se they allow her to experiment anyway, thinking it a phase 

It’s not a phase 

Her grandparents mess up her pronouns often and don’t get it all, but its happened less and less the longer she’s been going by female pronouns

They eventually arrange her a properly planned marriage once they realize she’s not changing her mind about being a girl, much to her pleasure  

Wearing her hijab and following other classic Muslim gender rules, like having a betrothed and not being alone with a boy, make her very euphoric and happy 

She knew right away Magnus was trans too since she like... literally handled his soul when taking him to Valhalla

Seems like something a Valkyrie would be able to tell 

Sam is very excited because this is the first time she’s met another trans person but doesn’t know how to bring it up 

I’m picturing it happening after they meet Thor when she and Magnus are talking by the campfire 

She just awkwardly blurts out “So uh gender huh?”

Magnus has no idea what she’s trying to say at first but once he does he’s very excited to talk trans with her 

ftm and mtf solidarity bitch!!!!

Then Alex gets thrown into the mix 

She doesn’t know about any of this  

Eventually, Sam finds the time to talk to her about her gender, and naturally Alex is ecstatic. It's part of why he takes such joy in being Sam’s chaperone

This happens pretty soon after Alex arrives in Vallhalla 

But Alex doesn’t find out the rest are trans too till much later 

It just sort of slips out from Blitz, a mention of feeling a bit dysphoric that day and Alex is like “!?!!!!” 

After hearing a bit more about Alex’s past Blitzen goes to Hearth and suggests he talk to her 

They have a very good venting session about growing up trans with shitty shitty parents 

Alex learns about Magnus last 

It’s when he comes to Magnus’ room after celebrating and Magnus got covered in chocolate 

Magnus has his shirt off and Alex sees his binder and is just like “!!!!!!” 

Magnus is a bit flustered but doesn’t really mind being seen shirtless since its Alex and he already knows he’s trans too so he’s not about to get attacked or called a slur 

Just like... Alex realizing his whole new little family is trans 

Just the whole empty cups fam being trans and all having very different ways of experiencing and expressing it but supporting each other through it all. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk

[flauntpage]

Still Can’t Get It Done – Observations from Celtics 121, Sixers 114 (OT)

Merry Christmas.

Let’s talk about the final play of regulation.

If you were like me, you were probably thinking that the ball would end up in the hands of Jimmy Butler or Joel Embiid, but JJ Redick took and missed the shot instead. If he hits from 18 feet, we’re talking about a wonderful road win. Instead he missed, the Sixers went on to lose in overtime, and the reactions were borderline apoplectic, at least on social media.

I don’t have too much of a problem with that play call. Sure, you can go isolation with Butler, who has hit a couple of tough three pointers at the buzzer this season. You can run the two-man game with Embiid and Redick.

Brett Brown decided against using a timeout and instead wanted Redick on the baseline, running that “inverted pick and roll” with Ben Simmons.

Watch it once while focusing on Redick and Simmons, then watch it again and check out Embiid’s body language:

I put “inverted pick and roll” in quotations because that’s only maybe 50% of what the play is. Sometimes it looks like a brush cut and sometimes it looks like a dribble hand-off. It’s a little bit of all three of those things at once.

Whatever the case, it’s a set they’ve used before with success. All you’re really doing it spreading out the floor and putting the onus on two defenders to navigate the brush, or else Simmons is going to drive the lane. JJ ended up with the ball and got a mid-range look that really is a higher percentage shot than those iso three-pointers Butler made earlier in the year.

The only problem I have with using Ben in that situation is that he’s obviously not a threat to shoot, so if you cut off the lane, you know he’s going to dump it off to Redick instead. And in this situation, he really didn’t get any contact on Gordon Hayward, nor did JJ do a good enough job of running Hayward into Marcus Morris. It was rushed and poorly executed:

Hayward can’t just round Simmons there, you need to get some body on him or drive him into his own man.

In hindsight, the skill sets of Butler and Embiid allow for more improvisation or flexibility when you’re in a crunch time scenario like that. Butler can drive OR shoot. Embiid can get to the foul line. You only needed one-point there, and Redick was not having an amazing shooting night, yet that’s where they went.

The other thing is this:

They didn’t need to take a timeout. Taking a timeout allows Brad Stevens to sub in Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier and take Hayward and Kyrie Irving off the floor. It also allows the crowd to sort of whip themselves into a frenzy. Letting your team go down the floor, seeing the matchup, and calling the play you want is fine in that instance. I didn’t think that was a huge deal at the end of the day.

This all leads us to Brett Brown, who unsurprisingly took a lot of flak last night, not just for that final play but because of the overtime collapse.

Let’s start by taking a step back and defining Brett Brown.

Brett likes motion, movement, rhythm, tempo, and sharing of the basketball. His base offense takes bits of things he learned under Gregg Popovich in San Antonio and also incorporates some Mike D’Antoni concepts as well. It’s space and pace, right? They spread the floor, sling the ball around, and get out in transition.

All of that is fine for 45 minutes, but it runs antithetical to late game NBA basketball, which is about slowing things down and executing half-court offense. Sometimes you just have to put the ball in your best player’s hands and let him do his thing.

I know I’ve used this analogy before, but it’s kind of like a spread offense football team doing well for three quarters. They throw bubble screens and hit you with read options and really kill you in space. Then, all of a sudden, the situation changes, the defense tightens up, and you need to line up in I-formation and just give the ball to your 240 pound fullback and let him bulldoze somebody for a difficult first down.

The Sixers aren’t great with that, that concept of changing pace and slowing it down and closing out a game. I don’t know if the base offense and some of their more common sets interface well with late-game basketball. They certainly aren’t running the floor and getting transition three-pointers with 45 seconds left on the clock, and a lot of times that renders Ben Simmons as more or less useless in the half court.

I don’t think all of this makes Brett Brown a “bad coach” per se, but philosophically the late-game approach has to shift. He needs to micro-manage more than he does. It’s nice to trust your team in a hands-off way, but a younger squad can’t just feel their way through these games, they need guidance from the sidelines.

This quote from Embiid last night I think sums it up a bit:

Joel Embiid had this to say about what he thought went wrong against the Celtics. pic.twitter.com/LYKvpptdl6

— David Murphy (@ByDavidMurphy) December 26, 2018

No player should ever be saying that they don’t feel like they’re in the right situation. I know Joel is putting the onus on himself to do more, but this sounds like he’s still not fully on board with whatever the Sixers are doing right now. He also needs to not turn the ball over six times, but it’s hard to criticize a guy who put up 34 points and 16 rebounds on 59% shooting while going 12 for 12 from the foul line.

One more little Embiid nugget from David Murphy’s Inquirer story:

Any ambiguity that may have seemed present in those sentiments was quickly dispelled when Embiid was asked why he thought the ball did not find him down the stretch.

“Don’t know,” the big man responded. “Got to ask coach.”

Hmm.. I dunno. Joel sometimes has these emotional knee-jerk types of reactions. He just did this a few weeks ago and it was squashed. We’ll see if anything comes from this round of griping.

For what it’s worth, I do think the “perimeter” stuff is a bit overblown, because Joel more often than not finds himself in the post after the Sixers go through their motions in the base offense. He gets post looks off elbow sets and they find various ways to get him in the block. A good sidebar story would be to look through the film and analyze every double team he’s received over the past three or four games.

Anyway, in the overtime period they hit one of eight field goal attempts, which obviously is not going to get the job done.

They were:

Redick open 3 (miss)

Butler tough turnaround mid range jumper (make)

Simmons tough layup from behind backboard (miss)

Wilson Chandler 23-footer after offensive rebound (miss)

Butler relatively open three-pointer (miss)

Redick contested three-pointer with shot clock expiring (miss)

Simmons transition layup against Al Horford (miss)

Butler three pointer with a hand in his face (miss)

The Sixers didn’t even hit the rim on those last two possessions, with 45 and 30 seconds on the clock respectively while down by 4 and 6 points. They really just did not execute well in overtime and they missed some open shots, rushed their sets, and looked really uncomfortable in the half court.

This one stood out to me:

Butler and Embiid pick and roll? Great. Love it.

They’re just a little sloppy going through it. Butler picks up his dribble early. Embiid has Chandler wide open in the corner, but picks out Simmons who is also open under the basket. Ben ends up catching the ball behind the backboard and has a tough finish there.

On the next trip down the floor, they did this:

That’s not a bad look at all.

Yeah, Chandler might have been able to get Embiid down low there, but you can live with an open Butler three.

They just didn’t get it done when it mattered last night. If Kyrie misses at the end of regulation or JJ hits his shot, again, we’re sitting here talking about a great win. The Sixers really had some promising patches of play last night and I thought they played some ferocious defense down the stretch. They went on some nice runs to erase Boston leads, and they even built leads late in the game. They just couldn’t finish the job by executing in the half court.

Other notes:

The Simmons jumper wasn’t a big deal. He shot it because he had to. He’s not taking that shot during a normal possession.

You see the clear difference in depth in these games. The Sixers got 13 points from their bench while Boston got 26.

Mike Muscala couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn yesterday. His 1-8 three point total really killed them.

3-7 for Ben from the foul line doesn’t get the job done.

Chandler had a nice game. 15 points on 5-11 shooting while going 3-6 from three? You’ll take that any day of the week.

The defensive rebounding in the third and fourth quarter was very good.

Boston didn’t shoot that well. Credit the Sixers for some of that, but you’re not gonna get a ton of 42% shooting nights from them at the Garden.

The national broadcasts are underwhelming.

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